Polish train maker denies claims its software bricked trains maintained by competitor

[J65nko]

From https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/...ed_allegation/:

A trio of Polish security researchers claim to have found that trains built by Newag SA contain software that sabotages them if the hardware is serviced by competitors.

Newag, a Polish train maker, emphatically denied that it installed such software in a statement [PDF, Polish] issued Wednesday, attributing any issues to unknown hackers.

The rolling stock and engineering business insists its software is correct and that it did not design the trains' programming logic to fail under specific conditions, as has been claimed.

[snip]

"We found that the PLC [programmable logic controller] code actually contained logic that would lock up the train with bogus error codes after some date, or if the train wasn't running for a given time," Bazański wrote. "One version of the controller actually contained GPS coordinates to contain the behavior to third-party workshops."

[Onauk]

The issues seemed to appear only in the case where trains were serviced by third parties. I don't know what kind of hackers would benefit from this. I think the defense of the train maker does not hold water.